


burn and rave at close of day

by daidalos



Series: (do not go) gentle, into that good night [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), F/F, F/M, Infinity War spoilers, M/M, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Steve Rogers Centric, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, eventual OT3, fix it series, spoilers for Infinity War, suicide ideation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-30
Updated: 2018-04-30
Packaged: 2019-04-30 07:14:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14491632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daidalos/pseuds/daidalos
Summary: Not again, please not again, please god no, please not again.It was never supposed to be like this. Steve had made his peace with the knowledge that he would die. He had made peace with the war that lived in his blood. He had never had to live in the aftermath.How could he make peace out of this?





	burn and rave at close of day

**Author's Note:**

> This will be mostly canon compliant with Avengers: Infinity War (aside from the atrocity of Sam Wilson dying alone, but this is a fix-it series after all) but there will eventually be a happy ending. However, there's going to be a lot of angst and heartache along the way. Steve will be in a bad headspace for the majority of this series, and there may be triggers. In this particular fic his thoughts are not terribly explicit, however he does wish for death a few times during this fic. 
> 
> This series will eventually be Bucky/Steve/Sam, but is currently pre-OT3, with Steve/Bucky and Steve/Sam.

For a single moment, Steve was convinced he had turned to ash as well. As he stumbled forward, fingertips brushing against the ashes scattered across the ground where Bucky had stood only moments ago, Steve felt bile rise in his throat, his heart turning hollow. For a moment, nothing else seemed real except for his grief, his lamentation, the echo in his head of _‘not again, oh god oh please, not again.’_

But suddenly he was lurching forward, hurtling gracelessly through the treeline, his lungs burning with fear as Steve ran, his body moving faster than his mind processed what was propelling him forward, until it clicked into place. _Sam._ Not Sam, Steve couldn’t lose him too. He had to find Sam.

As he ran, Steve focused, all of his senses reaching out, desperately trying to feel Sam’s presence nearby. All of a sudden, Steve heard the familiar cadence of Sam’s heart, and he veered sharply to the left. Bursting through the underbrush, Steve’s relieved gaze fell on the airman.

“Sam,” Steve breathed out, exhaling the heaviness of sorrow and fear, as he stretched out his hand to brush against’ Steve’s. With a perplexed frown, Sam moved toward Steve, reaching out his hand as well. 

For the briefest moment, their hands met. But before Steve’s hand could even tighten around Sam’s fingers, the wind picked up. Steve’s eyes were locked on Sam’s, and he could see the exact moment the glance of concern and confusion turned into abject terror in Sam’s endless brown eyes.

“No, no - Sam!” The desperate plea was wrenched from Steve’s lips involuntarily, but it was too late. Steve could do nothing but watch in horror as Sam turned into dust, just like Bucky. Steve stood, frozen to the spot, waiting to turn into dust himself.

But he never did. After a while - an eternity? A minute? - Steve realized with a horror even more overwhelming than before, that he was still here. He had not followed Bucky and Sam, and disappeared into oblivion, he was still here. Once again, Steve had been frozen, as he lost the entire world, _his_ entire world, and he had done nothing to stop it. Once again, Steve’s failure had cost Bucky his life, but this time, it had cost Sam’s his too.

It took Steve several minutes to realize the high pitched keening noise was coming from him.

Stumbling forward, Steve slowly made his way back to the site where Bucky had disappeared in front of his very eyes. The others - Thor, Natasha, Bruce, the raccoon - had gathered, staring at the corpse of Vision and the pile of dust beside him. _Wanda_.

Steve’s eyes roved wildly, despairing, searching for meaning, for explanation, for _something_. They latched onto Thor, and the god quietly spoke.

“Thanos’ mission was to wipe out half of the universe. A randomized selection, half of every population gone, with the snap of his fingers.” Somehow, miraculously, Thor’s voice still held sorrow and regret. Somehow there was still enough of the god left to mourn and feel, in the face of all his insurmountable losses. He had lost everything, and yet he still stood upright, power and grief surrounding him like an aura.

But Steve had been cleaved in two, hollowed out and stitched crudely back together, with nothing left inside him, nothing more than a puppet of destruction, battered and cast aside. And like that godforsaken marionette whose strings had been cut - and god wasn’t it fucked that Ultron still had this sort of power over all of them - Steve collapsed, Atlas, no longer able to hold up the weight of the world.

 _“Oh god.”_  

* * *

 The first thing Sam saw when he opened his eyes, was an orange sky. The visual was jarring enough to have him scrambling to his feet, looking around wildly, panic threatening to settle underneath his skin, beneath the inescapable sense of _wrongness_. The sky looked as if it was on fire, a vibrant orange dome above him. But nothing happened. Slowly, Sam managed to regain control of his breathing, cataloguing his senses carefully, as he tried to piece together what had happened. He had been in Wakanda, in the woods outside the border. They had all made their way into the woods, to face Thanos. The last thing Sam remembered before everything faded away from his memory was -

 _Steve_.

When Sam had been younger, playing out in the empty field a few miles away from his house, his older sister, Sarah, would often sneak up behind him, and drop several ice cubes down his shirt, just to watch Sam shriek and scream. She would laugh maniacally every time, and Sam would scowl, and yell until his throat was hoarse from the effort. He had always hated the sensation of the cold ice cube sliding down his skin, provoking a full body shiver, a sense of cold that seemed to cling to Sam for the rest of the night.

As the memories slotted into place in Sam's mind, it was suddenly as if an entire iceberg had been dropped down the back of Sam's shirt, rooting him to the spot, and making his very soul go cold with the realization of what had happened. Sam had turned to dust in front of Steve, in Steve's _hand_. The last thing Sam could remember, was the look of utter horror and fear in Steve's impossibly blue eyes, as he stood there, helplessly. 

Sam felt as if he was going to be sick.

Suddenly, from somewhere behind him, he heard a wretched, animalistic sound that he managed to identify as some sort of scream. Sam whirled around, his fists up in defense - though he didn't know how much good he could do against whatever enemy was about to attack - when he saw him. Sam's heart sank, and he sound himself desperately wishing it had been a predator, or a foe instead. Not this. Not Bucky.

It seemed that Barnes had the same idea.

"No!" He was screaming out, stalking towards Sam threateningly, in that strut that Sam used to make fun of, for Steve's benefit, the strut he had never once admitted he found attractive, not even to himself. "No, you can't be here! You can't leave him!" It was like another blow to Sam's stomach. "You're supposed to be with him! You're supposed to keep him safe!" Barnes was suddenly in front of Sam, grabbing onto his shoulders, nails digging into his flesh. Sam knew it was as much to reassure Barnes that Sam was _here_ that he was _real_ as it was to punish him for being here.

Sam knew Barnes was lashing out, moved by terror and concern. But Sam's breaths came faster, his chest tightening in the face of Barnes' anger. It was the familiar feeling of panic, a feeling that Sam had staved off for years. He had learned how to deal with this, but facing possible death, facing Barnes' anger, facing an existence that didn't include Steve Rogers, and knowing what that meant for him, Sam couldn't quite keep the panic at bay. He struggled to breathe, before giving way to his own fury and frustration. For once, Sam couldn't rationalize away his anger, and he let it spill over, as fiery and vibrant as the sky above the two of them. 

"What about you?" Sam screamed back at Barnes, arms grasping the assassin's forearms, locking the pair in a combative embrace. "You left him again! And now I'm not even there to pick up the pieces! You were supposed to be safe too!" Sam's breaths were coming in harsh pants, and after a split second, one of them gave way to an awful moan that reverberated through both of their chests. Sam didn't know if it had been him or Barnes, or both of them. Hell, it might have been the very universe, audibly aching.

It might have been Steve Rogers, his pain rippling out from wherever he was, his grief and lament felt in every godforsaken pocket of the cosmos.

Sam shuddered, and all but collapsed, Barnes falling right along with him, the two crumpling into a graceless pile, shaking underneath the weight of sorrow and fear. They were gone. Possibly dead. Sam didn't know _what_ they were, but he knew Steve wasn't with them. He couldn't explain how he knew, beyond seeing Steve standing upright and horrified as he disintegrated in front of his boyfriend's eyes, but somehow in his heart, Sam knew that Steve hadn't followed Sam, hadn't followed Bucky. He knew that once again, Steve Rogers was alone.

He didn't know how long the two of them sat like that, a devastated heap on the sandy ground, unable to speak, choking on the weight of reality that neither could fully acknowledge. Sam didn't even know if time worked in any sort of linear, earthly fashion, wherever they were. Sam didn't know, and he didn't even know if he cared.

"What happened?"

It was Barnes who finally spoke, his voice like rusty metal, croaking and pained. Sam barely managed to glance at him, the man's face stark white, his eyes rimmed with red. Sam knew he didn't look much better, with tear tracks cutting through the dust and grime that covered his face. Almost absentmindedly, Sam wondered if Steve had been covered by his dust. Immediately, Sam felt sick to his stomach. He wanted Steve. He wanted his family. He wanted _home_.

"I don't know. I heard this crashing, and suddenly Steve was there." Sam swallowed. "He looked awful, terrified. God, I don't think I've ever seen him look that scared before." That was a lie. Sam had only ever seen an expression close to that, once before, on a long-forgotten bridge in Washington D.C., an entire epoch ago, surrounded by dust and carnage and the weight of a history that was painful to even witness. It was how Sam had known exactly what was wrong, without Steve ever uttering a word. "He reached out to me. I grabbed his hand. And then I felt myself disappearing. I turned to dust." He swallowed again, the painful lump making it even more difficult to breathe. "He held my hand, and watched as I turned to dust."

Barnes let out a pained, shuddering exhale.

"We've got to get back."

Sam didn't look at him. He didn't protest that it was impossible, that they were dead, or lost, or stranded in some godforsaken supernatural world that only existed in nightmares and ghost stories. Sam didn't ask the necessary questions, such as 'how?' or 'with what?' or point out that there was a very likely chance they were not the only ones here - wherever here happened to be. Sam didn't waste his breath, because when he looked at Barnes' red-rimmed eyes, Sam saw the same cold determination he felt in his bones. They needed to get back. They needed to fix this, to reach out across the cosmos and return to Steve. There was an urgency in his heart, and Sam knew, even if neither of them would say it, there was a ticking clock. Sam had always known that Steve Rogers would burn down the world for Bucky Barnes. Over the years, Sam had been shocked and honored and terrified that Steve would do the very same for Sam. It was always a possibility, one that Sam and Bucky had wordlessly acknowledged and understood, in their odd dynamic. They had never needed to have any sort of conversation, they had always simply _known_ that the other would keep him in check, keep him from destroying himself along with the rest of the world in his grief and in his fury. Sam had always known that Steve would raze cities and empires, leaving behind only scorched earth and ashes in his wake.

But what would he do, now that half the earth had already turned to ash?

* * *

Steve's gaze was blank, as he moved through the palace. It had been Natasha who ushered him away from the site - ground zero, was what Steve called it in his mind - insisting there was work that needed to be done. What was left? What did Steve have left to give? There was no world left to save, no universe to piece back together? Steve was not so arrogant, nor so naive to pretend he was the only one who loved someone, who loved more than one someone. Who could be left on this godforsaken world that wanted to continue on?

He couldn't be the only one that was still desperately praying to join the ashes. 

Still, he moved his feet, he followed Natasha. He had recognized the look in her eyes, the fear buried deep. She had been a spy, but she hadn't been impossible to Steve, not for years. Besides, the fear Steve recognized so viscerally had been his own. When Natasha looked at him, she was terrified that he would disappear in front of her very eyes, as dust, or perhaps in another way. Dully, selfishly, Steve wished her fears would come true.

A door was opened, and Steve followed Natasha, Rhodey and Bruce into a room decorated with high windows, giving them a perfect view of Wakanda, of the damage done to the plains, the bodies and ashes scattered around the landscape. Bile rose again in Steve's throat, and this time he struggled to keep it down.

The room was in mourning, he could tell immediately. There were no anguished cries, no sounds of weeping, but Steve could see the tear tracks carved into marble faces, he could see the ever so-slight tremble of shoulders. He looked at the figure standing at the window, surveying the country, and what was left of Steve - not his heart, that had been another casualty of Thanos - lurched painfully, as dread and understanding sank in.

Shuri, the brilliant teenager who had done what no one else in the world had been able to, whose brilliant mind had already helped so many, who loved her family more than anything in the world, who smiled with such light and joy, turned around to acknowledge the newcomers.

The Black Panther, the new queen of Wakanda approached, and Steve sank to his knees.

Had it been only hours ago that they had arrived in Wakanda? That behind him, Bruce had bowed awkwardly as Rhodey laughed into his hand, while T'Challa dismissed him with amusement? If asked, Steve could not answer whether he was on his knees as a gesture of respect, or because he no longer had the strength to stand, but Queen Shuri did not order him to his feet. She only looked at him with a pain soaked gaze that Steve desperately wished he could have spared her from.

"Okoye thinks we never should have opened our borders," The formidable captain of the Dora Milaje - the queensguard now, no longer T'Challa's warriors, but Shuri's - stood immobile, behind her queen. Steve would have gladly given her his own head on a silver platter, if he thought he deserved the release of death, even though he so desperately wanted it. He had been the one to bring Vision to Wakanda. He had been the one to ask T'Challa for his assistance in fighting.

_God's righteous man, pretending you could live without a war._

And he had brought the war to Wakanda. 

As if reading Steve's thoughts, Shuri shook her head. As she did so, Steve noticed a long cut, extending from her left temple, down to her chin. "Thanos would have upended the earth, looking for the last stone. Our borders did nothing to prevent half of the -" she let out an involuntary sob that seemed to take her aback. After a moment, Shuri composed herself and spoke again, her eyes shining, but her voice steady. "Wakanda fought bravely. I do not know what my brother would have said, but _I_ do not regret providing aid."

The statement lingered in the air for a moment, before Shuri continued. "But we must rebuild. We must recover. We have sustained great losses." Shuri's hands trembled, and Steve saw that she clutched onto a bracelet of kimoyo beads, T'Challa had once explained to Steve that they had been a gift from his sister. Steve's body trembled with the reverberations of another sob that he could not give into. "You cannot stay here. We will close our borders again. Wakanda cannot be strong for the world, not now. We need time."

Steve opened his mouth to speak, to say he understood, to apologize, to beg for forgiveness, to beg for death, but his mouth would not move. His throat was covered in ash, in dust, his tongue was thick with it. There was nothing in his mouth but death and blood and ash, it covered his body, his hands. He was choking on the horror of it all, the atrocity, the _deathbloodash_ and Steve could not speak.

“Thank you, Your Highness. We will leave immediately.” Natasha spoke as if from a great distance, standing on a cliff far away from Steve. Maybe he was losing her too. Or perhaps he was fading away, in front of everyone. “And…” Natasha paused. The bile rose in Steve’s throat. He knew what she would say, before the words even formed on her tongue. “We are deeply sorry for all of your losses.”

Queen Shuri nodded, and her gaze landed on Steve, still on his knees.

“I am sorry for your losses too. Bucky Barnes was a friend. He will be counted as one of our fallen warriors.”

 _But he already fell_ , Steve wanted to protest. Bucky and Sam had both already fallen from the sky, and god, how many times would Steve be made to watch them fall, again and again? How many times would Steve be cursed to stand, imobile, as his lovers fell over and over?

Never again.

Steve was only half aware of it, but at some point, he climbed to his feet, and followed the others out of the room. They were lead to a hangar, returned to their plane, the plane that had been given to them by T’Challa in the first place. Steve was ushered onto the plane with the others, and sat down on one of the benches, where he stared at his hands, covered in _deathbloodash_. He needed to wash them. Steve needed to rub them raw and pink, and clean them, but he couldn’t. The ashes were all that remained of Bucky and Sam. He couldn’t abandon them any more than he already had.

He had no idea where they were going. Natasha conversed with Bruce and James in hushed tones. Thor and the raccoon had left, long ago. Steve didn’t know where. The tree had been the raccoon’s friend, somehow. “I am Groot,” he had said to Steve, and he had introduced himself in return. Would he have had a few more seconds, if he hadn’t bothered? Would Steve have had a bit more strength, enough to tear the gauntlet from Thanos’ hands? Would those few seconds have somehow allowed Steve to spare Bucky and Sam and half of the entire goddamned universe a horrific fate?

Life was a series of choices, and with the weight of the world pressing down on Steve’s blood splattered shoulders, he wondered if he had ever made the right one.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Feel free to yell at me on [tumblr](rogersbrooklyn.tumblr.com). I hope you liked it! Kudos are appreciated, however I’m not looking for con crit <3


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